soaphouse's Blog

Chores and Such
Jun 2, 2008 | 4:01 PM PST
Tags: astillbe , iris , mealy bug , aphid , gypsy pepper , radish

I had a good weekend in the garden. I was able to get a lot of routine chores done. Mostly weeding. I am happy to report that things are looking pretty good! We haven't had a good rain in a while, though...so things are a bit wilty. My watering time is tomorrow morning, so I will hopefully be able to help that situation soon.

The veggie beds are just growing like mad and I am looking forward to a bountiful harvest! Everything looks pretty good so far, but the broccoli is already showing signs of trouble (like last year). I think I may just be better off buying this at the store. HAH! Also, it seemed to have gotten too hot too fast for the sugar snap peas and the spinach, so I am going to fill in the holes with some similar warm season varieties. We did harvest the first sweet Gypsy pepper over the weekend and it made a nice addition to our dinner salad:

I also collected another bowl full of radishes today that I will add to our salad tonight. This time I will just cut them up raw and forgo to greens.

Today, while working on the weeding in the back, I noticed that my astillbes seem to have mealy bugs, so I sprayed them with insecticidal soap - hopefully that will help. Also, The Bearded Irises that had the aphid infestation got a nice trimming way back on the affected foliage. It looks better. I am hoping that I didn't cut so much back that they will have trouble storing up nutrients for the blooms next year...we shall see.

So, tomorrow I hope to get some watering done in the morning and I will continue to do some weeding in the front.